May 21, 1999

One Month After Littleton Massacre, 6 Are Shot at Georgia School

By KEVIN SACK

ONYERS, Ga. -- One month after the deadly shooting spree at
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., a 15-year-old student
armed with two guns walked casually into the commons area of
Heritage High School here Thursday morning and opened fire,
wounding six students before surrendering to an assistant
principal, the authorities said.

Four of the students remained hospitalized Thursday evening, and
none were considered to have life-threatening injuries. Three were
listed in good condition after suffering superficial gunshot wounds
to the lower extremities. One was listed in satisfactory condition
after a bullet lodged in her abdomen. Two others sustained minor
wounds and were released from a hospital in this middle-class exurb
about 30 miles east of downtown Atlanta.

Police had not publicly identified the suspect, who apparently
was disarmed and restrained by school officials after he fell to
his knees and placed a handgun in his mouth. But a large number of
students, including several of the estimated 150 students in the
commons area at the time of the shooting, said he is a quiet,
utterly average sophomore named T.J. Solomon who plays baseball in
a county league, attends church regularly, and participates in his
Boy Scout troop.

Witnesses said that Cecil T. Brinkley, an assistant principal,
confronted the youngster as he had the gun in his mouth and asked
him to hand over the weapon. The student complied and began to sob:
"Oh my God, I'm so scared, I'm so scared," the witnesses said.

"I was just doing my job," Brinkley said Thursday evening in
brief remarks at a news conference. "I did what needed to be
done."

The authorities did not identify the suspect because he is a
juvenile and is, for the time being, under the jurisdiction of the
juvenile courts. But Richard Reed, the Rockdale County district
attorney, said he would move next week to transfer the case to
Superior Court and to charge the suspect with multiple counts of
aggravated assault, cruelty to children and weapons violations.

The authorities have yet to describe any possible motive for the
shootings, the sixth seemingly random assault at an American school
in the last 20 months. But two friends of Solomon's said in
interviews that he was distraught over recent troubles with his
girlfriend.

One of Solomon's friends, Nathaniel B. Deeter, also a sophomore,
said that as recently as Wednesday Solomon had told him he was
going to kill himself. "He said, 'I really don't have a reason to
live anymore,"' Deeter said. "I told him he was crazy. I mean, a
lot of kids say stuff like that and never do anything." Deeter
said he did not report the incident to anyone. Nor did he report
Solomon's remark to him a week ago that he had a lot of guns and
planned to bring one to school.

Solomon's friends said he had ready access to a large collection
of guns kept by his stepfather, Robert W. Daniele, in their
four-bedroom house on a more than one-acre lot in an impeccably
manicured, upper-middle class neighborhood not far from the school.
Skip Morgan, a 16-year-old neighbor who lives two doors away from
Solomon and was a regular visitor to the house, said that Solomon's
stepfather stored 12 to 15 rifles in a locked wood and glass
armoire in the basement, but that said Solomon knew how to open it.
He also said a drawer of the armoire was stocked with ammunition.

Police searched the house and left with a personal computer,
among other items. They also searched Solomon's locker at the high
school. They said they were tracing the manufacturer and ownership
path of the weapons, which Rockdale County Sheriff Jeff T.
Wigington identified as a .22 caliber rifle and a revolver.

Wigington said that part of the rifle's stock had been removed.
He said the suspect rode a school bus to Heritage High Thursday
morning, but he did not speculate when the student brought the
weapons to the school.

Without naming Solomon, Donald A. Peccia, the superintendent of
the Rockdale County public schools, said that school records
revealed no warning signs about the suspect. "The disciplinary
record would not indicate he had been any significant trouble,"
Peccia said. "We had no reason to suspect this student at all."

President Clinton heard about the latest school shooting as he
was about to depart for Littleton to memorialize the victims of the
April 20 massacre at Columbine High, where a teacher and 14
students, including the two shooters, were killed. He said the news
"is deeply troubling to me, as it is to all Americans. We thank
God that the injuries to the students do not seem to be
life-threatening."